Futureproofing your English with Technology: Getting the most return-on-investment in an automated world

Futureproofing your English with technology

Getting the most return-on-investment in an automated world

By Tim Swanson

Jobs and employment Opportunities Education industry Policy and consumer changes Massive Open Online Courses Language translation software Industrial robots Elderly care Contact

Overview

April 2013 only 28% of graduating seniors in Beijing had been hired, 29% in Shanghai and 47% in Guangdong (national average was 52.4%, down 7% y-o-y)

Entry-level salaries in offices are lower in cities than peers in factories

Why?

Jobs and employment

Skillset mismatch, no one wants to work in a factory yet graduate skills do not meet labor market demand

Moving beyond education, as English becomes a medium rather than the skill or tool

Jobs and employment cont’d

English as a tool, not just “the” skill

Translation software, artificial intelligence, cloud

Robotic services (factories, agriculture)

Elderly care service

But first… why is the traditional education and teaching industry short-term for most graduates?

Opportunities utilizing your skills

50,000 companies specializing in English training in China

In 2011, $7.5 billion revenue in English-language training market up from $2.1 billion in 2009

100,000 foreign teachers recruited annually

Education industry

As of January 2009, there were 300 million Chinese learning English.

Mandatory for most from 1st grade through the first two years of college.

BEC and mandatory CET

Current market size

Why can you not rely on this in the future?

Policy changes, MOOCs, consumer preferences shifting and software automation

Education industry cont’d

English is being dropped from independent entrance examinations (e.g. Beijing Institute of Tech)

Beijing, Shandong, Jiangsu, different proposals to modify and reduce weight of English test scores on exams such as the gaokao

Fewer people taking traditional classes (drop in gaokao from 9.6 million to 9 million)

Burned by Get Rich Quick schemes (“Baby MBA”)

Policies and consumer changes

“Overpromise, under deliver” happened

Irrational exuberance and “animal spirits”

English is used as the medium of communication, just like dollars are used a medium of exchange. You don’t typically hold dollars to become rich, so you shouldn’t just “hold” English and expect to become rich.

Get rich quick?

Instead, mastering the language helps in communication and opens opportunities such as: ◦ Robot requirements

gathering◦ Locating scarce talent◦ Training foreign

professionals

English + other skills = Career

Online teaching did not exist 10 years ago in China

In 1900 there were 109,000 carriage and harness makers

In 1910 there were 238,000 blacksmiths

Today that number is a small fraction, yet most of those people ended up finding new jobs in new industries.

Creative destruction

Khan Academy has served more than 300 million classes since 2006

NetEase has 12,000 open course subjects, 4.6 million subscribers (both fixed and mobile) and a million student visits daily

Guolairen has 200 subjects, 35,000 enrollments and is spending $30 million over next 3 years on MOOC

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC)

380 million people in China will “need high-quality education and training resources across the country” from 2012 to 2017.

~30% of these people are expected to utilize online services creating a potential market worth ~$11 billion.

Investment into education companies fell to $46 million in 2012, less than ¼ of 2011.

Why?

MOOC cont’d

Language software translation market was $575.5 million in 2010, $1.6 billion in 2012 and expected to reach $3 billion in 2017 and $6.9 billion in 2019

Top 4 language translation services generated $1.5 billion in 2012

What can you do?

Develop translation software and services such as building a Lionbridge-like platform (connects freelance translators online, outsourcing clients at $.10 per word)

TranslatorsCafe.com Guru.com Proz.com SimplyHired.com

Interested in independent translation?

Google Translate has 200 million users each month (more done in 1 day than entire translation industry annually)

Current automated translation services are still poor in many multi-word situations

Other services

Developing the business model for both domestic and foreign markets.

In 2012, 38% mechanization rate for harvesting corn in China (versus 100% in the US)

Industrial Robots

The 2011 harvest yields in Heilongjiang province broke nation-wide records, rising 11% over the previous year due to “bigger and better machinery for threshing and plowing.”

In 2010 Japanese researchers demonstrated a robotic system that can identify the ripeness of a strawberry which enables the machines to cut harvesting time from 500 hours to 300 hours.

Robotic agriculture cont’d

2012 total sale of robots was 28,000 units.

It will be ~30,000 this year. And it’s going to continue to grow by 20 to 30% annually for the rest of decade.

For every 10,000 manufacturing workers in Japan, 300 robots are used — whereas in China that number is just 10.

Productive robots

In 2011 Foxconn only used 10,000 robots throughout their factories -- planned to have in place 300,000 by the end of 2012.

Following the 2013 Spring Festival (春节 ), Foxconn announced a hiring freeze on the mainland where it currently employs more than 1 million workers. The company installed robots throughout their factories in Shenzhen and Zhengzhou, replacing manual labor.

Foxconn “Foxbot”

One of the reasons why the robot per capita rate is relatively low is that at 140,000 RMB to 160,000 RMB ($20,000 to $25,000) a piece, these robots (or “Foxbots” below) cost more than four times the annual salary of an assembly line worker. 

Current market conditions

80% of robots currently being used in China are imported from abroad

What this means is those with competent communication skills and familiarity with laowai business culture, you can act as a potential purchasing manager or point-of-contact for factories.

Role reversal in the future: outbound sales

How can you work with robots?

By 2050, it is estimated that 31% of China’s population will be near the age of retirement.

In contrast, today about 14.8% of China’s population is over the age of 60.

Language and elderly care

In 2007, six million Chinese suffered from Alzheimer’s and that number is expected to grow markedly as the population ages. 

One third of all Alzheimer’s sufferers live in China.  Shanghai alone has 120,000 residents with Alzheimer’s or dementia.

Alzheimer’s

Only1.6% of people over 60 on the mainland (compared with 8% in developed countries) are accommodated in some way by care facilities.

Yet according to a report from China’s National Committee on Ageing, about 12 million Chinese over the age of 60 would consider retirement villages an option.

Elderly care facility

Fortress Investment Group (FIG) -- $1 billion over the next several years to build and operate centers.

7-star nursing home in Haikou, charging between $1,283 to $2,444 per month.

Elderly care facilities in China

AGNES suit allows its wearers to feel what it is like to have limitations in physical motility.

  The Hybrid assistive limb

(HAL) is a robotic exoskeleton developed by Tsukuba University.

Robotic Suits

In the UK there is Hector, a mobile “assistive” robot that can follow its owners and take commands via a touchscreen.

In the US, there are a number of social and domestic cleaning robotic projects such as the PR2 from Willow Garage and the Roomba from iRobot.

Robotics cont’d

Because this is a service industry, training will need to be undertaken.

And because many Western countries have experienced similar demographic issues, foreign health care professionals could help train local experts on best-practices.

You can act as an administrator, a host, an intermediary or any other position that needs competent communication skills in dealing with foreigners.

How can you help the elderly?

Best-paying jobs for English majors in the US:◦ Sales account manager◦ IT Project manager◦ Proposal manager◦ Web developer◦ Nonprofit executive director◦ Human Resource generalist◦ Marketing director◦ Managing editor◦ Marketing communications manager◦ Technical writer

Other job opportunities?

If you plan to work in international trade or with laowai, create a LinkedIn account (or at least Ushi)

LinkedIn has 250 million users, only 1% of whom are Chinese

Guanxi and social networking

Never stop learning and be open towards new skills and trades

Entrepreneurship and innovation can solve many challenges (e.g. apps, 3D printing, cryptocurrency and bionics)

Jiayou!

Conclusion

Ofnumbers.com Weibo.com/timswanson Linkedin.com/in/timswanson [email protected]

Contact

Mr. Swanson is a free-lance writer, educator and independent researcher that has built up a network of business contacts and relationships across the globe and spent over 6 years working in East Asia.  In March 2013 he published Great Wall of Numbers: Business Opportunities & Challenges which reached the top 10 best-selling e-books in Global Marketing on Amazon.com that month.

He is a native of Dallas and has worked as a business instructor at Anhui University of Finance & Economics as well as Zhongshan College in Guangdong.  Prior to teaching, he worked in several IT-based roles including deploying the physical topology for enterprise networks.  And most recently, at the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai he helped gather the requirements for implementing a SugarCRM and Drupal system for the organization.

He holds a BA in History and Economics from Texas A&M as well as a MS in Sport Management from Texas A&M.

About the author

The first version of the presentation was initially given on December 4th, 2013 at Shanghai University of Sport to a group of about 50 students and professors. Here is a copy of the video on Youku.

One additional issue (that for time purposes was removed) is in China, urban wages for the average white-collar employee have largely remained stagnant the last 2-4 years when cost-of-living (inflation) is taken into account.  This has a big impact in a family’s ability to afford pricey EFL courses.  In fact, this is probably the biggest reason for why companies like EF and Wall Street have been unable to meet their original growth goals (e.g. open 1,000 schools on the mainland).  See notes for more.

About the presentation